Tag: dysphagia
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Dysphagia-Friendly Fast Food
Reviewed by a licensed speech-language pathologist. Fast food is a part of real life. It’s where people meet up between errands or grabbing something on the way to work. When you’re eating with texture needs, that convenience can suddenly feel off limits. The good news is: plenty of fast food items are already pretty close…
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Understanding Your Swallow Study: How to Read Dysphagia Reports
If you’ve recently had a swallow study or are waiting for one, you may have a report full of unfamiliar words: residue, penetration, peristalsis, dysmotility. It can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re already anxious about eating. By the end of this page, you’ll know how to read the results, what they mean for your daily…
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How to Make a Fortified Sipping Broth at Home
Walk into any grocery store today and you’ll see entire shelves dedicated to liquids in cartons: chicken broth, beef stock, bone broth, sipping broth. Some promise “collagen for your skin,” others “restaurant-quality flavor.” And yet, for all the branding, most people couldn’t tell you where broth ends and stock begins. That’s not just trivia. For…
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How Do I Swallow?
Dysphagia is a very large umbrella for a large collection of symptoms at a large range of severities. This is not medical advice for your self-treatment; evaluation by a licensed speech-language pathologist is critical to determine if there are any physiological changes responsible for sudden changes in eating/drinking/swallowing. You must consult with your physician for…
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Mindful Eating
Engaging the Senses with a Single Bite Mindful eating is a powerful tool, especially when navigating dysphagia. It helps build awareness of the swallowing process, reduces anxiety around meals, and strengthens the mind-muscle connection. This guided activity will help you focus on the sensory experience of eating, using a single small bite of a safe…
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5 Tools For a Modified Texture Kitchen
I love the flexibility of cooking. If you gave 10 home chefs the same request, I bet you’d come away with at least three completely different ways to tackle it. Technique is often the most critiqued aspect of the way that a person cooks, but within the “how” of the dish, there’s also a question…
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Fear of Swallowing: Understanding Anxiety at Mealtimes
Fear-based swallowing difficulties don’t appear out of nowhere. They’re learned. Maybe anxiety heightened your focus on the mechanics of eating, making every movement in your throat feel unnatural, exaggerated, or risky. Maybe you’ve started avoiding certain foods, textures, or entire meals just to sidestep the anxiety. If any of this sounds familiar, know that you’re…
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Pregelled Breads: A Key Technique for Safer Eating with Dysphagia
Bread is one of the most common comfort foods in the world, but it’s also one of the trickiest for people with swallowing or chewing difficulties. On its own, bread tends to crumble, stick, or form dry lumps that can be unsafe. That’s where the pregelled bread technique comes in. Pregelling transforms bread into a…
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What Is Dysphagia or Difficulty Swallowing?
Swallowing is something most of us take for granted, until it doesn’t feel easy anymore. For some people, eating can shift from an automatic, enjoyable part of the day into something that feels uncertain, uncomfortable, or even exhausting. The medical term for this is dysphagia, which simply means “difficulty swallowing.” As both a speech-language pathologist…
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Safe Texture Finder
There is no such thing as too much urgency when it comes to seeking assistance with difficulty with chewing and swallowing. However, some don’t see a speech-language pathologist (SLP) until weeks after symptoms begin. These weeks, no doubt, feel magnitudes longer, as the concern rarely stops when standing up from the table. I want to…